Jeff took readily to the task of caring for S642. He was, primarily, a literal doctor, having earned his M.D. in the Magical physiology of monsters. Taking care of people was his job- or, at least, it had been before Gaster had hired him some twenty years ago for a project and just kept him on since then.

On top of that, Jeff was a two-time dad, and, Gaster had told him, he wouldn't have to worry about feeding S642, as Gaster wanted to take care of that himself. So that made things a little easier.

First thing first, he needed to get S642 some clothes. He would have, actually, first given him a real name, but Gaster had been firm on vetoing that. So, the test subject clone child would remain S642, and Jeff would get him some clothes.

Luckily, this was fairly easy. The lab hired employees of all sizes, so a quick raid of a supply closet procured a fitting outfit. Granted, S642 looked like a small scientist, what with the loose grey teeshirt, standard issue cargo pants, and a small lab coat, but the clothes all fit, they were free, and S642 would not likely be leaving the tenth floor of the lab any time soon, so it wasn't like anyone was going to be mistaking him for an actual scientist.

Still considering himself a doctor, Jeff's next step was checking up on S642's health. It wasn't that he didn't trust Gaster to make certain to keep his project in working order, but he did realize that Gaster had next to no experience with children, and he wanted to make sure that S642 was properly developing. He was happy to see that S642 was indeed growing, and quite quickly at that. Gaster was feeding him well.

Beyond that, it was mostly just ensuring that S642's mental growth was properly stimulated. That wasn't too difficult, as he was an incredibly curious child, and, Gaster told Jeff, literally was getting more intelligent by the day. All Jeff really had to do was provide him with something- anything, really- to play with and figure out, and he was satisfied.

Other than that, things really were easy. An occasional snuggle or just a few minutes of attention, and S642 really was contented.

The only thing that concerned Jeff was how much S642 slept. Because he slept a lot. Sometimes, Jeff would even be talking to him, and he would just sort of flop sideways, curl up, and sleep for a good hour and a half. But, of course, Gaster had an answer to that, too. He said that S642's Soul was still growing, and, as it caught up to his body, the constant naps would taper off.

And they did. Just a few weeks after Jeff started taking care of S642, he started to sleep less and... well, as much as Jeff wanted to take care of him, he really did get in the way often. Always wanting to show Jeff whatever he had figured out, or a picture he had found in a book, or a little doodle he had done with crayons. Of course, Jeff always paused in whatever he was doing to take a few minutes to look at whatever S642 was showing him.

And S642 was always ceaselessly, endlessly, infinitely happy to see Gaster.

Throughout the day, Jeff kept S642 in his workspace. The child had no qualms in sitting on the floor, playing or drawing or doing whatever Jeff had brought to keep him amused. But whenever he heard the door opening, signifying Gaster's arrival, he always stood, toddled over to the door like the toddler he was, and wrapped his stubby arms around Gaster's leg, burbling happily all the way.

The first few times this had happened, Gaster had been surprised, and maybe even a little disgusted. Why would he-- it, Gaster reminded himself, why would it have any reason to love him? He really wasn't nice to it, all he ever did was feed it. At this point, it was more like providing S642 with food, as he only just gave it the bottle containing the food solution and growth serum, and it did the rest, holding the bottle and drinking from it. He didn't even give S642 the same friendly- if fake- smiles anymore, only just keeping an eye on it in case something happened and he needed to save it. (Choking was hard for skeletons to do, but it still was possible.)

And then there were the weekly tests, to make sure that S642 was still growing properly, as well as beginning his- no, no, its- its conditioning into a weapon. Gaster was always laying it down on the table in his lab, forcing it to stay down while he hooked it up to various devices, running tests on it and checking its vitals.

S642 had every reason to hate Gaster, and, yet, it hugged him every time it saw him. And while it did willingly accept all the love and hugs and snuggles Jeff bestowed on him, it never actively hugged Jeff.

But every time Gaster came in the door- without fail- it would walk over to him and hug him- or, at least, as much of him as it could manage, as he wasn't quite even up to Gaster's knees yet.

Gaster quickly got used to this, even expected it.

The only thing that was any concern was its voice, or, more specifically, his words. While he definitely was very vocal, often expressing his opinions through shouts or whines or burbles, it had yet to speak outright. Gaster's research showed that, especially with the boost of the growth serum, S642 should be well along in learning to speak.

Jeff, however, assured Gaster that S642 was a child, and children did their own thing in their own time.

And so the days stretched on. A few weeks quickly became a month, and that into two.

Gaster found that, despite his best efforts, he had started referring to S642 as "he" instead of "it," and, despite S642's total ability to walk the distance between Jeff's lab and Gaster's lab, Gaster carried him there more often than not.

But, other than that, and the speech thing, things went pretty well. S642 learned to read to a degree,  And to walk without falling, and to run. He picked up a few gestures on Hands, using them to communicate yes and no answers to things.

And still, time went on.

~o0o~

It happened when S642 was nearly a year old.

Gaster had come to Jeff's lab to pick S642 up. He had received his daily hug, now at knee-height almost exactly, and had S642 in his arms. Now he would turn around and walk down the hall to his lab, where he would give S642 its dosage of the solution, before tucking it into bed for the night.

As he turned to leave, the door to Jeff's small lab burst open, three figures rushing in.

These were Gaster's other three "assistants." Really, they were more of his assistant's assistants, as he rarely dealt with them personally, leaving that to Jeff.

The first of them was It. It had a much longer name, but no one could really be bothered to remember it, except for that the first two letters were I and T. So, It. It was little more of a head sticking up from the ground. It didn't speak often, but was really quite intelligent, along with a mean streak of dark humor that occasionally surfaced. It also didn't have hands, but that had been solved by Gaster, who did the same thing for It as he had done for himself to get his Magical hands.

Next was Gaffen. Gaffen was short and round, and had wide eyes. He spoke more often than It, but was still rather quiet by society's standards.

Finally, the youngest of the three was Simeon. Simeon was a small saurian monster, with a large, childishly round head and short little arms that, when he folded them together under his shirt, you almost couldn't tell were there. He had a very childish personality, but was smart enough to keep himself around.

It was Simeon who had run in first, followed by the other two. He was waving around a couple of papers, shouting "Dr. Jeff! Jeff! We got those reports you wa- -Oh! Hello, Dr. Gaster, Sir- ... Is that a kid?!"

They all stopped. Gaster looked from Simeon to S642, then back to Simeon.

Finally, he said, "So it would appear." He looked at Jeff, who seemed more astonished than the other three assistants. "Jeff, I will leave the explaining of  circumstances to these three up to you. The same... conditions... apply to them as to you. Be sure to make that clear."

And then he strode out of the room, S642 staring over his shoulder at the three new, equally bewildered faces.

Thus, S642 became the secret child of the tenth basement floor of the True Lab.

~o0o~

Since all the employees now knew about S642, or, at least, that he was there and if they told anyone about him, Gaster would be very very mad, taking care of S642 became much easier. The four assistants took "shifts" watching S642. And, he didn't have to stay in anyone's workplace; there was a moderate sized break room on the tenth floor, and he spent the day there, with whichever of the assistants was currently watching him.

Gaster remained, quite obviously to all the assistants, S642's favorite. Why, Gaster could still not fathom, but, he had come to accept it. That wasn't to say he approved, supported, or especially returned S642's affection, he only just condoned it. He still was maintaining the delusion that S642 was only just his test subject, and he was not attached to him.

Although he only really realized it later, his self-maintained delusion was completely and utterly shattered when S642 finally said his first word.

~o0o~

Gaster's head shot up sharply.

He...

That was just his imagination. He had not heard that.

He was sitting at the table in the break room, having just used the microwave in the small mini kitchen to heat up some leftover pizza from a few weeks ago, subconsciously glad that monster food did not spoil. At the same time, he had been working on some calculations for yet another CORE design. Similarly to him, Jeff and It were both eating their lunches and working on schematics for... something or other. It didn't really matter at the moment. Gaffen was preparing his lunch in the mini kitchen.

And Simeon was playing with S642, sitting on the old, battered couch that backed the table.

Or, they had been. Now, everyone was silent.

Gaster twisted in his seat to look at where S642 was standing on the couch, leaning against the backrest, his chin just resting on top of it, peering over the back of the couch at Gaster. Glancing around at his assistants, Gaster saw they all looked just as shocked as he. So, then, that meant it had probably not been his imagination.

So he looked back to S642. The small skeleton was wearing a proud, self-satisfied grin. Gaster just looked at him a moment.

Then, accompanied by a hand gesture equivalent to the single word, Gaster asked, "What?"

S642's grin only widened. "Din's!" It said happily, with the pronunciation of a child.

Gaster blinked, very, very slowly. And then he stood from the table, fixing all of the assistants with a dark look.

"Who is responsible for this?"

At some point or another in time, each of the assistants had managed to learn that the W.D. In W.D. Gaster stood for WingDings, as well as why the Royal Scientist hated his first name so much and never used it.

One of the few things Gaster hated more than being called by his first name was being called by a portion of his first name. A nickname. Such as Wing. Or, as S642 had just called him, Dings.

And he clearly thought one of his assistants had decided it was time to get back at him for all the cruel jokes and threats of job loss.

S642, meanwhile, just grinned, and shouted the offending nickname again.

Gaster looked pointedly at Jeff.

"Hey," Jeff countered, "don't look at me. Aren't I already in enough trouble for insisting that you raise the kid? My neck's already on the chopping block, so why would I risk dropping the axe?"

Gaster glanced at It, but immediately moved on. He knew It rather well; this wasn't the sort of thing It would do.

He moved on to Gaffen. Gaffen looked shocked. He just shook his head, unable to speak.

That left Simeon, who also looked confused and astonished.

"Din's!" S642 shouted happily yet again, reaching an arm over the back of the couch in "Dings'" direction.

Gaster let out an aggravated sigh, rubbing the ridge of his nasal bone with one hand, and saying quite a few rude words in Hands with his other. Then he strode over to the couch, lifted S642 off the couch, and swept out of the room.

Some time later, he gave up, both on figuring out who had taught S642 to call him Dings as well as on trying to get S642 to call him something else. Every attempt, at either of these, was only just met with an enthusiastic "Dings!" And, by the time Gaster gave up, S642 had, in fact, perfected his pronunciation, even nailing the -ing- part.

Years would go by, S642 would grow up, and Gaster would never learn where he had picked up the nickname.

§

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